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"Dream of a safe place": Saudi sisters in hiding in Hong Kong after fleeing family

Reuters | Feb 22, 2019, 15:48 IST

ReutersImage used for representation

HONG KONG: Two

sisters

from

Saudi

Arabia were intercepted at Hong Kong airport by the kingdom's diplomats en route to Australia, their lawyer said, the year's second high-profile case of

Saudi

women trying to flee what they call repression at home.

Saudi

crown prince Mohammed bin Salman is visiting Beijing on a tour of Asia just a month after a

Saudi

woman made global headlines by barricading herself in a Bangkok airport hotel to avoid being sent home to her family.

"These brave, young, intelligent women have been living in fear, in hiding and in legal limbo in Hong Kong, not knowing what their future holds," their lawyer, Michael Vidler, said in a statement on Thursday. They hoped to find a third country "place of safety" as soon as possible, he added.

The pair, who have renounced their Muslim faith, arrived in the Chinese territory in September 2018 after fleeing a family holiday in Sri Lanka and had booked a connecting flight to Australia, Vidler said.

But the

sisters

, aged 18 and 20, whose identity Vidler did not reveal, were intercepted by officials during their stopover in the Asian financial hub, before they managed to escape and enter the city as visitors, he said.

The women, who have been in hiding in the former British colony for the last five months, told the lawyer their connecting flight to Australia was cancelled and the officials tried to put them on a flight to the